Everyone’s Got a Havana / Yoani Sánchez

Cuba’s Most Famous Dissident Blogger Writes About Life Inside the Sepia Postcard

The cast bronze sculpture rests one of its arms on the rail of the bar. It seems like he’s going to ask for another daiquiri, but in reality his metal eyes are watching everyone who comes and goes from El Floridita. Some turn the flashes of their cameras on that life-sized statue of Ernest Hemingway, while others see it as something from the past, that distant time when there was nothing unusual about finding an American drinking in some cantina or walking the narrow streets of Havana. Times when ninety miles didn’t seem such a great distance and the language barrier was crossed by dint of drinks, music, hugs and jokes.

Despite geographical proximity, for the vast majority of Americans today’s Cuba is unfamiliar territory, a region mired in mystery. It is possible that many of them couldn’t even locate our island on the map, or that they imagine a little island whose entire coastline can be viewed from the height of a coconut palm. Something like the space inhabited by Robinson Crusoe, but in this case occupied not by a single man, but by 11 million people. In that immense country to the north of us, there are still those who believe in the story of the heroic David resisting the onslaughts of Goliath in order to create a realm of social justice. Others see us as more of political freak, from where a robotic people, sunk in material and moral misery, threaten to invade them, whether as soldiers or as immigrants.

It has been half a century since American citizens have been denied the right to legally visit our country. While they have had to learn the names of the eleven different presidents who have passed through the White House in the last five decades, our Plaza of the Revolution has had just two tenants, both with the same last name. In all this time, most of the enemies of the United States have evolved, becoming business partners—like Russia, China, or Vietnam—or even NATO allies, like several of the Eastern European countries. There is the opposite case, as well, where former friends—like Iran or Venezuela— have become adversaries. But the name of Cuba (along with North Korea) remains on the same list.

Thus, on the other side of the Straits of Florida, the image of Cubans has taken shape through much imagination, built both on past memories and on stories from exiles. So it is not unexpected that we are seen like one of those old postcards in sepia, a forever frozen image from the mid-twentieth century. People who still travel in old cars—Cadillacs, Chevrolets and Plymouths—built in American factories. An island trapped between its natural beauty and the deterioration of its architecture, with some neighborhoods which, at a passing glance, could be in New York or Washington D.C., while others recall Calcutta or Somalia. Strolling the wide boulevards of Havana triggers nostalgia among Americans older than sixty. A kind of déjà vu recalling the memories of childhood and the sensations of adolescence. We are like some early twentieth century museum, but one where those in charge of the “collection” haven’t bothered to care for the pieces shown to the public: an agglomeration of obsolete and patched objects evoking the glamor of what is now extinct.

Clearly, we are the only Latin Americans who do not call those sun-burned, flowery-shirted vistors by the derogatory name of “gringos.” Here, no. Here we say “yumas,” which has a laudatory and admiring tone, even a certain fascination. Although the political propaganda constantly carries on about the “Yankees,” that little word has failed to take hold in everyday language. And the same thing happens in the other direction. Many Americans look at us with the affection with which one observes a poorer and younger cousin, one who still has a lot to learn. Sometimes, with a certain arrogance, they ask questions only they understand: Why doesn’t my Blackberry work here? Where’s the machine to pay for parking? Is it possible to find Kleenex somewhere? And each of these questions exudes a naïveté that amuses us, makes us laugh. Perhaps it is from this that they get the image of a people who are always smiling, which they then pass along to their friends in New Orleans, Arkansas, Texas.

Ever since the Buena Vista Social Club film and album, it’s been very hard to convince Ry Cooder’s compatriots that not all Cubans know how to dance, play dominoes, or sing a guaracha. Stereotypes have led many of those living north of the Rio Grande to believe that this island contains millions of skilled baseball players and that the only skin tone encountered is a medium-tan mixture of Spanish and black with a little Indian. The repeated cliché of “poor but happy” has also done much damage to the understanding of our reality. There are those who are certain we dance a few rumba steps while waiting two hours for the bus, or sing a guajira décima facing our empty plates. The serious faces of so many Cubans, distressed and worried, is one of the great surprises of visitors who have only seen us through the shiny pages of a tourist guidebook. This awareness of sorrow, of grief, of the rictus of sadness beneath so many smiles, is among the most bewildering discoveries of those who come here for the first time.

Among the Americans who have been able to tread this land in the last five decades there are many exceptional people. From academics or TV stars, to movie directors of the likes of Steven Spielberg (why not travel to a Jurrasic Park?), to the former president Jimmy Carter, all filled with good will but also with more than a little naïveté. Thousands come every year, daring to defy the controls imposed on them by U.S. law, using the old trick of traveling through a third country and taking advantage of the fact that the customs officials will forego stamping the passport of anyone who finds their way to this demonized territory. Among these intrepid visitors is James, a boy from New York who, not satisfied with his passion for Cuban literature, fell hopelessly in love with a young brunette with slanted eyes and the hands of a healer. One day, more than five years ago now, someone asked him exactly how he saw Cuba. “My experience is unique,” he said, “so it can’t serve to make generalizations. I am aware that I am on an island where, when I open my eyes in the morning, the first question that comes to mind is, ‘What am I going to eat today?’”

So everyone sees this land in her own way. Through the viewfinder of her camera, focusing on what, in her view, seems most Cuban, be it skin color, peeling walls, the unsual driveability of a museum-quality Chevrolet, slogan-covered billboards, the perpetual smiles of the children, the haggard faces of the old, the lines and parades. And you? How do you see us?

Yoani Sánchez is a Havana-based writer and author of the blog Generation Y and the recently published book Havana Real. This article was translated by Mary Jo Porter.

*Photo courtesy of flippinyank.

This article is taken from Zocalo Public Square.

25 August 2011

Declaration of Principles: We Who Are Born With No Horizon / Angel Santiesteban

Ángel Santiesteban at the door of his houseon election day 2008. The sign says: In this house we don't vote. We toss it out.

We were a generation they blindfolded at birth, telling us how we must think and postpone our dreams because, they told us, the light was blinding. Our mothers put up with injustice out of fear and to protect us because they knew that the worst was yet to come.

Then, at first, by necessity or intuition, we looked for the faint flashes that filtered through the edges of the bandages. And it was definitely beautiful. We arrived at the conviction that we would be happy blind. Until we tore off the bandages. Since then we can no longer live without the glare of the enlightened. The blog The Children Nobody Wanted, in particular, is an urgent space to share free thought, something unknown and forbidden in my country for several generations.

Since I began my journey with the blog, I felt the radiance of unknown freedom. And once demonstrated it is now a must, as essential as oxygen itself. Since then my spiritual life has multiplied, but the Political Police of my country, without the power to attain the ethereal and censor thought, take the body to pay for daring. And two months after starting the blog I was assaulted by three men who threatened me; “you’d better not become a counterrevolutonary,” with the result being a broken arm. This initial torture is known by the phrase, “Teaching Tools,” which have no purpose other than to frighten, terrify, and preview the suffering that future hours of existence hold. My email, assigned by the Ministry of Culture, was immediately deleted. I was prevented from publishing and participating in cultural events. Responding to my posts in official blogs were functionaries, journalists without decorum, opportunistic writers and critics, of course, those of little talent.

There is no way to make me give in

Then State Security understood that their pressure had not had the desired effect, which they hadn’t counted on and which, in some way, discredited them; so they devised the idea to manipulate an ex-partner, a Machiavellian invention, and they have created a series of complaints, without the slightest evidence tying me to the supposed fanciful events. Now I am being prosecuted with a petition that adds up to a total of 54 years in prison, the Prosecution has combined some and is asking for 15 years deprivation of liberty.

For over two years I wait impatiently, giving the Government, State Security, the National Revolutionary Police and the Prosecutor of the Republic time to reconsider that there is no way to make me give in and to silence my breath of free expression; despite feeling terrified by these embarrassing accusations.

Seven months after the start of the legal process, practically ignored by the investigators, on their recognizing that the investigations had no logical basis given personality and behavior of the slandered, the Directorate General of the Police took part, through an official who had to be present at the time of the interview, suspiciously, just after receiving an invitation to the Festival of the Word in Puerto Rico, I was forced to sign a 1,000 peso bond, which legally precluded my participation in this literary festival.

These Government Institutions, seeing my firm stance, despite their efforts and tortures — physical (the broken arm) and psychic — and after the publication of several posts about how they tried for years to recruit me as a member of State Security, decided on force, intensifying and speeding up the infamous process they maintained against my person, in their attempt to shut me up or make me pay for the audacity of rebelling against the silence they imposed.

Prevented from seeing my son

As the start of the psychological torture, they imposed a “restraining order” with regards to the “alleged victim” but the real objective has been to prevent me from having a relationship with my 12-year-old son, depriving me, for over two years, of all contact with him. In this sick way as well, my son has been kept away from his half-sister; the two of them, until this time, maintained an emotionally intense relationship. Since then not even a phone call has occurred.

On August 4, my lawyer, Atty. Lourdes Azua, was terrorized by the intent to involve her in the investigative process against me. Captain Amauri (semi-literate in terms education), in a disrespectful way, asked me leading questions in front of the attorney, where he put into question the professional ethics of the lawyer who had practiced her profession for over forty years. My representative immediately sent a letter to the Director of his Law Collective, and the National Justice Directorate, to make them aware of what could be the beginning of harassing her for doing her job.

After leaving the police station I was depressed for twenty hours, but finally, in the early morning hours I knocked on doors where hearts were open to me and they advised and helped me to regain the spirit of optimism I usually possess. I also considered that my fallen spirits would make the job of the executioner easier. It might even bring me bad luck.

Without the least intention of making a martyr of myself, I was sure that the mission would work and that I could complete it. I have two children. I wrote several books. I planted a tree in the Demajagua a few feet from the bell of the redeemer. I have conscientiously complied with God, the human race, the Masonic Institution to which I have belonged for almost 25 years. To continue would be to repeat myself, because my personal dreams do not amount to much save seeing my country with all the freedoms that belong to a citizen.

Despite the fear

So I want to assure you that as long as I have strength in my body, I will continue expressing my feelings through the written word, literature, and the blog The Children Nobody Wanted. I will not accept intimidation, acts of vandalism, or coarse processes that violate what is more precious: feelings and propriety. I will endure to the utmost so as not to give in and will continue expressing my ideas, opinions and positions of principle.

It doesn’t matter if they imprison me, abuse humiliate demoralize embarrass me, words that may be synonymous, but they have taught me the deeper meaning and etymology of each word and what the differences are. Despite the fear, the suffering my family and friends, I’m happy because I believe I am fulfilling the ideas of Marti, with his indispensable work and reaching for all the light promised by the Cuban Revolutionary Party that was, among others, founded by José Martí.

If the moment arrives I assure you that I will go proudly to prison. And there I will stay as long as my body lasts on a hunger strike. I do not desire to be remembered. I will do nothing to merit that. Others have already done that and they are invincible. With complete certainty I can say that others will come after me and with nobility they will know how to conquer the dreams of those of us no longer here, and I thank them in anticipation.

I also infinitely acknowledge the support of each and every one of the people who have answered the call of justice, because I would prefer not to exist, rather than accept continuing with the bandages on my eyes and the gag in my mouth, to paraphrase the Apostle, seeing a Master in my Country.

In Havana, the 17th day of August, 2011

In regard to me, if I could make one humble demand, it would be that God and Martí never abandon me.

In Havana, the 17th day of August, 2011

Counterfeit Money / Yoani Sánchez

Her son pulled on her skirt asking for candy, while the guard demanded the ticket from the cash register and someone asked, insistently, for the purse-check ticket. In the midst of all this madness, she made the mistake of not checking her change for the purchase, a little over 6 CUC that had to last until the end of the month. When she got home she discovered that hidden among the coins was one with the face of Che Guevara, who, with his majestic gaze, tried to make himself pass for a one convertible peso coin. The lady ran back to confront the vendor, but no one paid any attention. She’d been ripped off by one of the most common tricks of the hard currency stores: giving her a three Cuban peso coin in place of a shiny CUC, with eight times the value. She had the urge to throw that tiny coin through the window, but her husband recommended she sell it to some tourist to recover the lost money.

Life offers these unpredictable somersaults. The face of Guevara, the former Central Bank president (1960), looks at us now from a coin that is used primarily as a souvenir or as an object of deception. That man who had the irreverence — some will say the disrespect — to sign the national bank notes with his brief nickname, “Che,” is contained within a circle of metal of doubtful value. Trapped in this monetary duality that he never imagined hovering over the chimeric “New Man” of his discourses. All around the hotels, now, one sees the elderly with their poverty-level pensions, showing a foreigner the “merchandise” of these shiny three-peso coins, with a beret and jacket-clad guerilla. Meanwhile, the clever hand of a cashier managed to sneak them into a client’s change, taking advantage of the distraction of a confused customer caught between the demands of her son for candy, and of the doorman who checked her bag.

Response to Elaine’s Irritation / Miriam Celaya

Elaine Diaz, photo from the Internet

Just as expected, the article I published in number 9 of the magazine Voces which I reposted in this blog caused stinging and irritation in more than one website, which always makes me feel good. Among those affected by the stings, blogger Elaine Díaz seems to honor me with her attention in a particular way. “Strange Attractor,” published in her blog La Polémica Digital (Digital Controversy), is the writing that flatters me. Some friends and readers informed me about her reference to my work, because — and here, following the example of our leaders, I must self-criticize — I’m not a regular reader of Elaine’s blog. This distinction piqued my interest and almost my liking for this young woman, who, I am told, is a professor at the School of Communication. Maybe that’s why she writes well, which, I’m sad to admit, is not always a quality that comes with our journalists and other communicators.
Elaine, I repeat, writes well, but does not always say it well. It could be because she may not read as well as she writes, or because my article made her nauseous, which she admits. Or maybe because, in her anxiety and haste to disqualify me, she neglected some odd little detail, such as the fact that the pioneer blog she uses as a reference (Murciegraphos), which I must confess I was not acquainted with, had not been updated since 2007, that is, before the blogger explosion in Cuba. Nor does it seem odd to me that some isolated blog might constitute a blogosphere, which is what my article is about. However, she shouldn’t deny that the increase of blogs, especially those that have remained on the Internet, which are updated regularly and which are among the ones that have provoked a virulent reaction from the authorities, is a phenomenon that took place after 2007. I propose historic examples that may illustrate my assumption: It is known that Christopher Columbus “discovered” the New World in 1492. However, archaeological finds attribute the Vikings’ presence in North America prior to the discovery date. Nevertheless, for all purposes, October 12, 1492 is the date that marks the discovery of America because Columbus was able to return to Europe and testify to the existence of land on this side of the Atlantic, and the Vikings were not, to my knowledge. Or maybe the Nordic Scandinavians were not very interested in the matter of discovering something, who knows. But, like it or not, Elaine, pioneer Karel’s “inconvenient” blog did not mark the beginning of the blogosphere, if not, I, just having found out about its existence, would advocate the right of giving it due recognition, and I would flagellate myself for not having known about it until today. Even Voces Cubanas came after the Desdecuba.com platform (early 2007), or even Consensus (December 2004), a collective platform.
Elaine conveniently omitted a piece of my post where I state that, at the time of the birth of the alternative blogosphere, “different people drew near, some of whom had long since been dabbling in online journalism or had taken their first steps in isolated blogs”. That is, the emergence of a blogger platform in itself did not negate, at any time, the prior existence of other blogs, although it’s true that, because there were doubts, I did not mention any particular one. 

I add that I could be mistaken in other facts, and I am willing to rectify those errors, if that’s the case. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough Internet connectivity to verify and correct them all soon. It would be great to have help from informed people such as Elaine… and also from others even better informed, because her investigations are a bit skewed. For example –using a funny and biblical parable – she assumes that Eve was born with the blog Sin EVAsion (January 2008), as inferred from this quote from her post: “The Cuban blogosphere began with Adam, just as the beginning of time. Eve was not yet born, Miriam. Too bad. It would take three years”. Yes, sorry Elaine, because Eve was actually born in 2005 for the daily Encuentro en la Red, probably a few months after your paradigm Karel. Under the pseudonym Eva I began to collaborate in the publication that year. Eva was born before Eva’s blog, unrelated to Adam’s rib. I think that, if Elaine wishes to correct my chronology, she should at least adjust her own, since she has such ample opportunities to do research. She should have prevented that error by just having been careful to read my blog’s profile before pouncing so zealously on me. I did not have (nor do I have) the intention of writing the history of the blogosphere, but to move some information around to complement the map that the U.S. academician Ted Henken put together, with facts and dates that the public was not aware of. That does not prevent the contributions of others, nor do I think that I’m worth such a waste of “revolutionary” energy in order to attack me. It might be indispensable now, and could be put to better use in the interest of “renewing the model”.
Then Elaine complains about my proposal, when she even classifies herself within the taxonomy: “I’m touched by the blogger who was born under protection, who has posts dictated to her over the phone, the a-critical, a-neuronal blogger who is an imbecile and is in favor of the regime for a few hours of free internet and a salary that fluctuates between the ridiculous to the inadmissible”. The truth is that I never said all that, though I admit that her assessment does not wander far from my evaluation. But, in this respect, it provides more details than I did, is delightfully explicit, although, considering her youth, she shows an inexplicable amnesia. Because I remember (how can I forget!) as part of a select cast of the TV show “The reasons for Cuba,” in which a number of alternative bloggers, including me, are accused of being cyber-terrorists, mercenaries and traitors, although, as usual and as it turns out, impossible, evidence of such charges was not provided. Elaine cannot ignore that putting the powerful machinery of the media, the government monopoly that she defends so much as a function of fabricating a false case against other Cubans is usually a preamble for a history of long jail sentences and constitutes a criminal act of which I declare her an accomplice. Did someone, beyond conjectures, perhaps show her concrete evidence of our “payments” at the service of a foreign government? Perhaps it’s enough for a journalism professor that the authorities summon her to offer herself to do their dirty work? And she still denies she is “official”? In Cuba, under a dictatorship, this is a rhetorical question. Moreover, after this, I don’t know if she has the right to be included in the category of official blogger “light”.
However, I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt: there are some that say that Elaine was used by the political police, that her statements were conveniently edited, and that she had no idea that they would appear in the program of reference. For my part, when I want to enjoy a mix of talent and naïveté, I prefer attending a performance of The Little Beehive (no sarcasm, those kids are great performers), provided that it is not a work of tribute to the five spies or other similar atrocity. But if Elaine had really been manipulated, shame and journalistic ethics should have compelled her then to publicly denounce the media maneuver. So far, she has not done that, so there are only two options left: either she shares the “reasons” for the mentioned TV show, or she might have her own private “reasons” to not contradict her obligations. Mystery surrounds Elaine, perhaps until everyone is able to enjoy better times. Isn’t that right, Elaine?
A few months later, she was discretely invited to a twitter encounter that was held on July 1st, 2011 at 23rd and 12th Streets in Havana, enthusiastically embraced by some alternative twitters (Orlando Luis, Yoani Sánchez and Claudia Cadelo among them) who were quickly rejected from the original show. A dividing, clearly defining line should be drawn between her (them) and us. It all became official, rigid and exclusive, demonstrating that ideological barriers are imposed by official bloggers-subordinated to the government, not the independent bloggers and twitters, who answer to no one. What are we talking about then, Elaine? Along the same line, I remember the first blogger contest “Una Isla Virtual”, Elaine Díaz was awarded a prize she rejected, a mere certificate recognizing her work in a blog. It was a “contaminated” acknowledgement, not because she said so, but because her benefactors did. More than once, a hand has been extended from the alternative blogosphere, and she has refused to take it without providing reasons beyond the same old official rhetoric. Free? You, Elaine?
And this makes me land on another of her “arguments”. Elaine states: “There is little time left for those who believe in Socialism (the capital “s” is hers, of course) in a sublime act of honesty or ideological suicide or simply because they democratically and sovereignly feel like it”. Actually, she completely lost her muse in this respect, because the same statement can be applied to her in reverse. Why can’t I selflessly be against socialism and against the Cuban government (which, incidentally, are not the same thing), for an honest act of choice, without being paid for it by a foreign government? I am neither socialist nor Marxist, but that does not make me a mercenary or an annexationist (my apologies to those who choose to be). At any rate, I have friends who are avowedly socialist and they are dear friends. Other friends of mine, as dear as these, have liberal, demo-Christian, and even anarchist leanings. I do not subscribe to any ideological bias or base my friendship on ideology. Others don’t find it easy to define me politically either (anti dictatorial is the name that comes to mind to define me in some manner); but just the same, I allow myself the right to have political opinions and to criticize whatever I “democratically feel like” I declare that I am interested in politics, though it is not the axis around which my life revolves, because I prefer to choose the political program that closest to my own interests than to tamely permit that others make policy and decisions for me. The Cuba that I dream of would not exclude anyone because of her political ideology, and that includes socialists, Marxists or whatever it’s called in the fictional theoretical literature. Is that clear to you, Elaine? Or will you need many more spoonfuls of this aloe tonic?
I too, like many other Cubans, am self-taught on many issues, but that does not make me reluctant to take training courses and skills from someone who masters certain disciplines. In fact, taking free training is part of self-learning and depends, among other things, on the student’s interest. Did Professor Elaine know this? Hence, I decided to take the free course offered by the Yoani of Elaine’s sorrows, and I will always be grateful to that friend’s generosity for sharing her knowledge with me (and with so many others!) And I am grateful to everyone who ever provided me with some sense. I cannot mention all of them, there are too many. This is a group almost as large as my own ignorance, of which I become more aware the more I learn.
Let me re-emphasize the idea that a blogger is the highest example of freedom of expression. Elaine’s theoretical gloating when referring to emerging personal maps from 1995 to today and her impressive Jorn Barger and Justin Hall quotes, as well as the fact that users use blogs “for journalism, the compartmentalization of recipes, writing romance novels or for whatever they fancy” does not deny the principle of freedom of expression, but quite the opposite. Since when should free speech be limited to merely the political? Why wouldn’t it be freedom of expression for a cook to exchange recipes with other colleagues throughout the world or a novelist to publish his literary works in his own blog? This girl has such a narrow concept of freedom of expression! But I’m not surprised by her mental parochialism: she has been conditioned to political compromise. Not me. I believe that freedom of expression is a wide and universal human right, not a political exercise.
The “truth about Cuba” is not, in fact, what Elaine or I say. Indeed, one cannot capture our reality in a few paragraphs, which seems to be my only point of convergence with the intellectual barricades. As a Cuban, I merely present my own experiences and perspectives. I have no masters, whether native or foreign. All my readers know I am not a complacent scribbler (I add that I’m also not “complacent” because every post I write I consider to be imperfect and incomplete). But Elaine cannot deny that, in my condition as a free, dissident and rebellious citizen, I must face demons that she does not. Others consider that a disadvantage. I feel it is an advantage and a privilege: I do not commune with dictatorships. The truth about Cuba, as she proposes, is not yours or mine. For now, I say the truth about Cuba is more about the number of exiles and dissidents, the meager pockets of ordinary people and the rampant corruption, the official statistics about the banana or fresh milk production or the eternal promise of renewal of the same government for almost 53 years. I remind Elaine that I’m almost 52.What is new for her is ancient history for me, though I have never felt I am “retro” like other people of my generation. I don’t pretend to have the ability to guide young people. I’d rather feel like I’m always “on the go” learning, sharing and creating, which is the best way to stay alive. I accept, unlike the generation of olive green octogenarian tycoons, that my half-century does not grant me any generational privilege. It would be like admitting that I have more rights than my own children, which I refute. Ultimately, my key word is “family”, not “revolution.”
I does not seem that those in the lead were not too far ahead when Voces Cubanas arrived, if indeed they were there at all, which, in addition, is not all that important. We and Club Cuba Blogs or Cuba Bloggers are also not “peaceful neighbors” of the same tenement slum, as claimed by Elaine. Although, if truth be told, the alternative blogosphere has been able to learn how to receive as a compliment the not-so-peaceful stonings from such neighbors, so we do not consider ourselves as victims, which does not negate that they constantly throw stones at us.
I can truly thank Elaine for her oblique but undeniable reference to my never-humble person. Maybe if she had been less bilious she would have seemed more authentic to me. What can we do! But, without a doubt, Elaine writes well, and a well-written piece is always appreciated. Hopefully, with time and experience, she might become better. Ah! I almost forgot a little detail: I don’t like humility. It reminds me of Isaura the slave, Uncle Tom, Liborio and many other characters whom I would never, under any circumstances, wish to be. I’ll gladly leave the monopoly on humility to Elaine, since she considers it a virtue. I hope she enjoys it.

News of the Day / Reinaldo Escobar

This Monday, early in the morning, I turned on the TV to find out what was happening in Tripoli. The lead international story, read by the announcer at 7:30, was that the United States was going to dismiss the charges against the former head of the IMF. In the expanded report we learned that in Cairo there had been protests against Israel, that Syria had announced elections, and that there had been a tribute to those killed in the attacks in Norway.

Minutes later, as if it were of minor importance, the speaker presented “a summary of the latest events in Libya”: An excerpt of a speech by Gaddafi calling on the people to resist the colonizers, the intervention of Hugo Chavez, and a report by a Cuban correspondent in Tripoli who limited himself to saying that there had been no confirmed reports, and that the sound of gunfire in the background was fading. In the background we saw images of Green Square crowded with people celebrating, but there was no explanation. The flags being waved by the multitudes were tri-colored.

To learn more we had to wait until 6:30 in the evening, when the Roundtable show, under the title, “Libya under the bombs of NATO,” offered, finally, the official version of events.

All this reminds me of those cave drawings where an arrow reaches the antelope as a magic talisman in anticipation of a successful hunt. The difference is that in our cave, those who have a monopoly on information paint, for us, the arrow flying in the wrong direction, perhaps with the primitive belief that facts will arrange themselves as in the drawing.

22 August 2011

Architectural Horrors / Rebeca Monzo

From some few years back, it has been unleashed on the city, I’m not sure if it has in the country, I don’t have the data, but I submit that it is expanding here like a epidemic, it may have arrived in other provinces: the taste for columns. To someone to whom it occurred to begin and copy them, mimicking those that were used a lot in the architecture of the 30s and 40s, and that in some cases, for certain more modern constructions of the colonial style were a big hit. Also it the same thing has happened with Spanish tile and Jaimanitas stone.

I am in total agreement with the aforementioned construction and styles of those ages, they look very nice, always and when they are placed appropriately. But what is unforgivable is that to be in style they use them in houses and facades of the 1950s, that are characterized by designs of clean straight lines and curves, but they have nothing to do with the famous columns, and in doing so they succeed in just destroying their architecture. There doesn’t seem to be anyone putting a stop to this. I don’t know why those famous community architects are silent about it, or those who have to authorize those remodeling projects, who permit a similar atrocity, uglifying the city that was characterized by its beautiful architecture more each time.

Here I have some bad examples:

A building from the 1950s, whose first floor and common areas of the yard have been closed and converted with the unusual columns and tiles that have nothing to do with the rest of the building, similar to the painting. The La Timba Neighborhood, Plaza. It was a beautiful apartment building before this capricious transformation.

Three story building, from the 1950s, whose first floor was remodeled as well, without taking into account the original architecture. Nuevo Vedado, Plaza.

I think that who is truly guilty are the authorities who are named precisely to guide and authorize or not, these changes to the outside of these buildings. Please, folks, let’s not continue uglifying our city or treating it like our enemy.

Translated by: BW

August 17 2011

Affinities / Rebeca Monzo

Menu from 1963. Text: INRA National Park, Zapata Peninsula, Cafeteria De La Boca, Cook's Recommendations

The Cuban Film, Affinidades (Affinities), by Jorge Perogurría and Vladimir Cruz, awakened my interest, which is why I decided to to rent it for this weekend, because I still was able to remember the two of them in Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate).

For me, I am not a critic of movies nor much else, although as a movie fan, it was like watching a tourist postcard, printed and flat.

All of the action takes place in the beautiful setting of Cienaga de Zapata (it just suffers from this). A quartet composed of two Cuban men, one ordinary technician and another high-ranking official, a Cuban women, wife or girlfriend of the first, and a Spanish investor, who apparently had an intimate and business relationship with the official of Aguas Habana.

As soon as they arrive in a small boat that makes this journey towards the Tesoro Lagoon, where a touristy area is found, the crossed looks start, a childish omen of what is to come.

From the disguised waiter, with extreme imposed kindness, who constantly winks at the official, the use of curse words out of context, the excessive fervor of the investor (the only great acting), played by the Spanish actress Cuca Esribano, up to the incomprehensible and excessive innocence that fades away like magic, of the wife, woman, or girlfriend of the ordinary technician, who throws her into the ring of the boss’s appetites to ensure his job, before the impending layoffs which will take affect in the workplace.

The night of the Taíno Show, in the cabaret restaurant in the tourist center, lacks authenticity (even though it is valid in the film) with the presence, somewhat anachronistic, of Omara Portuondo singing a bland song, until the sexual apotheosis, a Pas de Quatre type, that doesn’t add anything to the film, until the final exit by car along an infinite causeway, all gives the sensation that he came from nothing and left with nothing.

The only contribution for our eyes was the marvelous natural but mutilated scenery of a marsh without crocodiles or exotic birds.

If you would like to lose an hour and thirty minutes, which is about how long this film lasts, without seeing anything interesting, then I recommend it!

Translated by: BW

August 7 2011

Monumental Horrors / Rebeca Monzo

In the past few days, I wrote about architectural horrors, today I am going to dedicate this post to the aggressions committed against our monuments.

Walking through the neighborhood of El Vedado, as always with my little camera in hand, I stopped to look at the little park that splits the road in two.

There I was observing the state of abandonment and deterioration of the green spaces and painfully I could see it, the pillaged base of a sculpture of the famous musician Johann Strauss, covered in gold leaf (too shiny perhaps for our strong sun), donated by the Vienna Embassy to the people of Cuba.

Without any respect, the statue was mysteriously removed, under the sleepless eyes of the always alert CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution), something truly incomprehensible, since the thieves would have had to have a truck at their disposal to take it away and would have made plenty of noise separating it from its pedestal

Also left there to the embarrassment of all, the stone with the dedication of the monument.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only case, sometimes by theft, and other times by political motives, statues and parts of monument that shape the ornate history of our city have been destroyed, mutilated, and stolen. We remember the Maine Monument whose eagle was torn out, under the pretext of replacing it with a Picasanian dove that never arrived, as well as the statue of that President of the Cuban Republic, all that was left to remember him by was his pair of shoes. Also, they don’t have any respect for the sculptures and religious images of the Colón (Columbus) Cemetery, perhaps the most pillaged of our assets, considering by experts to be one of the most important necropolis, in design and monumental value, in the world.

I think it is the duty of all, to report these vandalisms to try to put the brakes on their impunity.

Translated by: BW

August 20 2011

A Hunted Hunter / Luis Felipe Rojas

Lieutenant Colonel Roilan Cruz Oliva (left) and Lieutenant Luis Quesada (Right). The latter is now being accused of violating a minor in Holguin.

On March 24, 2010 when the political police deported me from Bayamo, Granma to Holguin, they took me directly to the G2 Operations Barrack located in the neighborhood of Pedernales. Lieutenant Colonel Sabuco, a notable oppressor known for his abuses and his aggression against dissidents, was waiting for me there.

The instructor (investigator) I was assigned to was Lieutenant Luis Quesada, who at first seemed like a person who wanted to portray an image of a joyful kind of guy in the eyes of others. He walked in with the technique of trying to win me over, of mentioning two or thee places in Santiago de Cuba where he said he had studied. He spoke to me about sports and a few other things until he asked me what I was doing in Bayamo. I responded to him, telling him that the information had a price and that he’d have to extract that confession from me through torture, but of course, he quickly argued that the revolution does not torture anyone. When we spoke a bit more and interchanged some opinions, he told me that he had been in the home of Cari Caballero in December of 2009. I told him that everyone knew that, that he had been denounced by everyone for kicking open the door of the house, for taking part in dragging activists who were protesting when Zapata was on hunger strike. Remember?

Luis Quesada boasted in my face about kicking that door open and perhaps about kicking some ribs as well.

Today, Lieutenant Luis Quesada is being held in that same detention center where he tried to recruit me, where he asked me to tell him who was going to my house and why. In that barracks of Pedernales, in Holguin, where so many non-violent dissidents have slept on the floor, put up with the rigorous cold, the heat, and the insects, is where Luis Quesada is detained awaiting his sanction for the crime of having violated two minors, a 13 year old girl and a 15 year old girl, a case which is currently under investigation and which has not yet concluded…and perhaps they will never do it.

In the picture I have posted above, one can see Lieutenant Luis Quesada next to now Lieutenant Colonel Roilan Cruz Oliva, who at the time of Zapata Tamayo’s death was a Major and served as second in command of Department 21′s Confrontation of Enemies section. He was directly in charge of Zapata. When the death occurred, at one point he even told Reina Tamayo Danger that the martyr should have never been sent to Camaguey, which destroyed all accusations made by the regime of Havana. Reina can affirm this. In the photo, both these men are standing in front of the mob which, until recently, was blocking the surroundings of La Guira cemetery in Banes. Surely on that morning they saw how the paramilitary troops kicked and insulted (as usual) men and women who long for freedom.

Translated by Raul G.

19 August 2011

Going Shopping, Punishment or Pleasure? / Rebeca Monzo

For many years now, what was a very pleasurable way to spend time before 1959 — going shopping — even if just standing outside and looking in the shop windows, has become almost a punishment.

Most of us who go out to buy something for the home, are women. In genera, men detest this type of activity. Undoubtedly they prefer to submit to the Chinese torture of going to the farmer’s markets (perhaps because they have no choice), because they are the ones with the strength to carry the heavy bags full of fruits and vegetables.

My friend Magy told me that yesterday she went shopping at the department store La Epoca (fine, what was left of it), because her daughter had given her some money for her name day to buy a pair of shoes. Something that could have been very pleasant was turned into a real burden.

To enter this shop, as in all of them on my beloved planet, even in the smallest, you have to leave your bag outside. And this annoying, but they say, it’s the established custom. Of course, when you ask who established it, nobody knows the answer. The place where you leave your bags has a sign that says: Objects of value cannot be left in bags. There is no detail about what objects fall into this category. So, if you want to go in, you have no option but to leave your bag with all your personal belongings in it. For me, for example, things if value include the keys to my house, photos of my children, a little notebook, a flash memory, my cosmetics, in short, everything that I always carry. Then, you have to become a juggler, carrying in your hands your wallet, glasses, cellphone (if you have one) and whatever objects you consider important. This is not only very bad, but it also lends itself to many things, among which is someone hiding something in your bad or removing something from it.

My friend, like everyone else, had to leave her bag in the pigeonhole, after waiting in the usual line, and then hand over her ID, which they demand despite it being a flagrant violation, carry in her hands the above mentioned objects and climb the stairs to the third floor, where the shoe shop is, because the elevators are only for the use of the employees or those with obvious disabilities.

Once there she saw some shoes she like and when she tried them on she told the clerk she would buy them, but she would take them in a bag without the box. She was told she had to take the box because they couldn’t allow her to leave it there because they weren’t allowed to accumulate trash, and if she didn’t want it she could throw it in the first trash can in the street. This bothered my friend, but there was nothing she could do about it.

She took the fifty CUCs her daughter had given her and when she went to pay the clerk asked for her ID card, and she said she didn’t have it as she had left it with her bag as demanded. Then the clerk asked if she knew the number by heart and she said no. Then, I’m sorry — answered the saleswoman — I can’t give them to you. My friend insisted but to no avail. She was indignant without her pair of shoes, tired and exhausted from the heat (the shop wasn’t air-conditioned) and what should have been a nice afternoon of shopping turned into a real punishment.

August 13 2011

Cuba, the Same Ration of Hate / Luis Felipe Rojas

Photo from Cubaencuentro: Police violence in Havana

This article was written by Luis Felipe Rojas and published on the digital newspaper, Cubaencuentro.

Little time has passed since the conclusion of the VI Cuban Communist Party Congress, and now very few have faith in those promises.  In the spectrum known as Social Political, the government does nothing to truly set these reforms in motion.

The general-president, Raul Castro, has made reference to the prohibition of entering and exiting the country as “prohibitions and regulations issued during another moment of the revolutionary process”, to mask that judicial monstrosity that is the exit (or entrance) permit of the country.  However, nothing is said about the prohibition of traveling freely within the national territory.

What does the local press say about the new flourishing police check points, which were eliminated from the site of human rights inspectors which visited the island during the end of the 80′s?  Nothing.  If anything, a random local newspaper will refer to them but as “revolutionary measures” taken to impede the growth of the black market.

On innumerable occasions Cuban dissidents have denounced the prohibitions of entering or exiting their own provinces.  Jorge Luis Garcia Perez (Antunez) has a police vehicle permanently stationed at the corner of his block in the central municipality of Placetas, Villa Clara.  In the police control check point of Rio Frio, at the entrance of Guantanamo, there is a list with names, photos, and political references of nearly a hundred political dissidents in order to keep them from coming in, or getting out, of the city.  According to Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina, member of the illegal Eastern Democratic Alliance, the list is activated or dis-activated depending on specific orders from the political police on significant dates or days in which it is presumed that there will be popular protests.

The beatings carried out against various female dissidents (coming from Moa, Holguin, and Palma Soriano) in Santiago de Cuba during the past month, with the objective of keeping them from assisting mass being held in Catholic churches like the Sanctuary of El Cobre or the Cathedral of the province, proves that the government is the one that drowns its own citizens in a sea of illegality.

Which judicial tools does the National Revolutionary Police hide behind in order to surround the homes of dissidents, blocking off entrances, in order to prevent them from participating in commemorative acts convoked by themselves, but patriotic nonetheless?

One would have to search through Law 88 (or the Gag Law) to try to find out what it is about placing flowers under a statue of Jose Marti, or carrying out a public event in a park, or a meeting in one’s own living room, that constitutes an attempt against national security.

In regards to the promises of reforming the socialist legislation in terms of migratory issues, the general-president cheers on his supporters and gives them the right to defend the 50 year long project.

“This street belongs to Fidel”, or its derivatives like “the streets and universities are for revolutionaries” catalyze hate amongst Cubans.  The consequences can be verified in acts as shameful as the mob repudiation attacks, the public beatings carried out by supporters, or the bombardment of eggs, excrement, and paint against the homes of dissidents.

At the beginning of this year, photos were published on the internet of the home of Sara Marta Fonseca, a non-violent dissident who lives in the Havana neighborhood of Rio Verde.  Members of the Rapid Response Brigade smeared the facade of the house, the front porch, and the side hallway with tar.  When all of this mockery was made public, and when accredited journalists residing in Havana as well as tourists occasionally passed by the house at night to take some photos as if they were trophies, officials from the sinister Department 21 (G2) offered Sara Marta the chance to set up a brigade which would paint the house for her, a proposition which, according to sources from the internal opposition, she declined.

The future effectiveness of Cuban legality will first have to universalize the right of all citizens and rip away all the hate injected into each citizen.  Sooner or later, we will have to dismantle that machine which just hurls insults, kicks, and spit.

Translated by Raul G.

16 August 2011

Ticket to (Another) Paradise / Ernesto Morales Licea

The landing gear descended and, as vertiginous as it is, rushed his body into the daylight. Hanging upside down, cut by irons and cables, semi naked, the torso of a Cuban greeted Barajas’ airport with his halo of death and desperation. That torso was only 23 years old.

Nobody likes the word: desperation is an alarmist term. But let’s see, how many world citizens, honestly, how many unhappy and disappointed, would be willing to emulate Cubans in the methods employed to escape their earthly paradise?

Not many. Not to be absolute. The East Germans who offer their bodies to the barbed wires, landmines, and the aim of snipers don’t exist today. Desperate fugitives who flee in the middle of snow storms, who die frozen among the snow, escaping comrade Stalin’s paradise don’t exist today.

What exists are Cubans, yes. A new race of fugitives that are setting records in the ancient art of evasion.

Some say: Central Americans also emigrate. True. They jump on frenetic trains, they tie themselves to its roof tops, at the mercy of wild gangs and bandit cops, at the mercy of bad weather and losing their legs under the wheels of the iron.

Yes, they emigrate from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, to the United States. To the country that — whether liberal friends around the world like it or not — is still the oasis of opportunities that offers a blanket to the lawn mowing emigrant, just as to the parents of Facebook’s inventor.

Some say: Haitians also emigrate. And they also do so in flimsy rafts, food for sharks. Where do they emigrate to? To the same place as Central Americans. To the most vilified and envied country of the world.

But neither Mexicans, nor Salvadorans, nor Guatemalans, nor Haitians, emigrate to anywhere. We, the homus andantis from Fidel’s paradise, the children of the new Motherland, demand much less: barely a different country than the one where we had to live. The demand is just another country of the orb. Only that. It doesn’t matter if it is Finland, Ukraine, or South Africa. What matters is that it is not ours.

For that, Cubans put their brains in gear. The build floating monsters, amphibian Chevrolets, they put together tires and planks, they hang anti-shark diesel in the corners, and head out to sea.

They take over a Peruvian embassy by force, inside its walls ten thousand sweaty, thirsty, malnourished, hopeless souls seclude themselves. Waiting for a ticket to freedom.

White flesh and black flesh meet, proud mulata nationals with Italians with bad breath, adolescents of recently developed breasts with Spaniards who take Viagra; they swallow up their modesty and nausea, and they marry in the Island with a metallic love.

They serve as archivists: they dig, dig, dig, they ask, they photocopy, they print, they solicit Spanish citizenship and bless the grandfather who had the wit to be born in the Motherland a century and a half ago.

They populate half the world, a Cuban today, ten tomorrow, they flood Ecuador with their cracked dreams, and although pursued illegals, they prefer a very poor nation like that at meridian zero, before their big tropical island.

Today, one appears in the news: I will jump into the void from my window if you try to deport me to Cuba. Another one appears tomorrow: frozen, shredded, his bones cracked by the undercarriage of an airplane that doesn’t care about misfortunes nor the anxiety of freedom.

How horrible, how disheartening, what a bitter paradise have they built on the Island that watched our births. God. When our country’s History gets written some day, the History behind this story of tyrants and victims, of deserters who die horrendous deaths; that day we will lack many siblings: drowned, crushed, shot by Mexican coyotes, chewed up by sharks’ jaws, beaten up in Panamanian jails, killed by the cold weather or by hunger halfway along their journey.

Those, I would like to think, are resting somewhere else: in the Paradise reserved for the victims of our insular paradise.

Translated by: Angelica Morales

July 18 2011

Pablo (not so) Loved in Miami / Ernesto Morales Licea

On August 27th, Pablo Milanes will sing in Miami. According to the billboard ads, it will be a historic concert. Of course it will: for his followers as well as for the Vigilia Mambisa. Some will lose their voices for singing along to his songs; others, outside American Airlines Arena, will lose theirs screaming out “communist” at him.

Without a doubt: a historic concert.

No wonder. Pablo is not just another Cuban troubadour. Pablo has been unhappily confused with Paulo FG (some protests that can already be seen in Miami exhibit banners that say: “Out Paulito Milanes”), but unlike the salsa singer, Pablo is unique, and is the other component of the most representative binomial of Cuban music during the post-revolutionary era. Silvio and Pablo: the sharp duet.

If I am tied to Silvio Rodriguez by the admiration for the sublime poetry of some of his best songs, and the absolute rejection he inspires me as a man of ideas, and further more, as a human being, with Pablito I invert those factors a bit: I fancy him more honest and worthy than the singer of the Unicorn, but his music is not as appealing to my ears. I respect it, but I don’t love it.

When I speak about inverting the factors just a bit, I am exact: Pablito Milanés, born in the same city as I, erected lately as a media critic of the Cuban Revolution, doesn’t offer me any confidence or attention as a committed artist. What’s more: I fancy him lightly opportunistic.

(One point to be clear about: to evaluate him politically is fair because he doesn’t skimp in talking about politics. José Ángel Buesa was asked in Santo Domingo about the nascent Cuban Revolution, after he traveled outside of Cuba in 1959, and he answered: “Did you ask Fulgensio Batista about poetry when he passed by here a week ago? Don’t ask me about politics.” One cannot evaluate José Ángel Buesa with a political standard. Pablo Milanés sometimes talks about his music with the foreign press.)

Why an opportunist, Dear Pablo? Simple: because screaming when they stomp on our toes is very easy. To scream without the stomp, is very different. And I don’t think I am revealing a secret when I say that the divorce between the great troubadour and Cuban officialdom has a date and almost a time: at exactly the instant when his plans for the Pablo Milanés Foundation were thwarted.

Since then, put a camera in front of him, he’ll say his thing. With success great or small, but he’ll say it. It is possible that all of a sudden he’ll throw out ideas like the Revolution will continue after the death of Fidel and Raul Castro, something he thinks is great; it is possible for him to affirm that Raul and Fidel truly want to repair the country they have mistreated; but he’ll also criticize the gerontocracy that governs the destinies of the country, he’ll support harsh declarations from Yoani Sanchez, and defend the talent and pose of the censured rappers, Los Aldeanos. Good for Pablo.

However, it is still a suspicious and questionable attitude for an artist to pose as politically committed to the democratization of the island, just so long as he is outside it.

Has somebody heard Pablo Milanés in Cuba confronting the regime in Cuba loud and clear, saying uncompromisingly that which he declares to the Spanish or South American media? Where was the Pablo who repeatedly gives controversial interviews in foreign countries, when 75 people were imprisoned for writing against what they saw all around them, or when three Cubans died before a firing squad for wanting to escape the country? Could it be that then he wasn’t outside Cuba and therefore, the lock on his throat did not disappear?

I adored the Pablo who invited Los Aldeanos to sing at the Havana Protestrodome itself, sticking out his tongue to the censorship that falls over this rap duo. But it seems too little to admire him like others.

So then Pablo comes to sing in Miami: I’m so glad that’s the way it is. I applaud the happiness of those who will enjoy him this coming August 27th. However, what is he doing, what has he done, and what will our Dear Pablo do to unlock a cultural exchange which he now favors, but which is a one-way exchange?

I am not talking about words in front of the amateur camera of a young filmmaker who interviews him in Havana. No. I am talking about real efforts. I am talking about demanding and fighting for the rights that his compatriots in exile possess, his co-artists, of singing in the country that watched their birth and of which they have been stripped by the grace of an exclusionary ideology. I am talking about declaring himself inside, of utilizing his concerts, of demanding in writing before all the Ministries, with a signature that it is not from just any other Cuban: it is the signature of Pablo Milanés.

Did Pablo ever defend the right of Celia Cruz to sing her songs at a plaza in Havana just as he is coming to do at the Miami Arena? Would he publicly invite Willy Chirino to collaborate with him on the Island, knowing that Willy would give a piece of his life to be able to sing in his homeland? Again and again: No.

That is why I, who defend tooth and nail the right to freedom, and therefore the right of an artist to show his work at any stage on the planet, I don’t promulgate but I do understand the claims of those who, from this side of the ocean, feel incited and indignant by the presence of Pablo Milanés, and even more: by the presence of the avalanche of Cuban artists who step on American soil today. (Of course: to then say, as does a certain character whose name I’ve always tried to forget, that Pablito is not a musician but an agent sent by Castro, goes a long way toward separating the wise from the intellectual orphans.)

Miami, let’s stop the false statements, is not just any city. Miami has been, for half a century , the oasis of victims, of the pursued, the imprisoned, the exiled from Cuba, and that cannot be disregarded when it comes time to put the circumstances in perspective. A portrait of Josef Mengele is not the same on a New York corner as it is in Jerusalem.

Personally, I will not carry any signs nor will I raise a hand to condemn the presence of my fellow countryman in this symbolic city, but the reasoning of those who will, does not seem illogical to me.

The subject is one of a tremendous moral-ethical complexity.

If it was only Pablo, the excessive emotion would all blow over a day or two after the 27th. But the reality is much more serious: turning on the TV in Miami, switching to on any Hispanic channel, has made me ask myself where I am: do I, or do I not live in Cuba?

If Ulises Toirac works at MegaTV before returning in a few months to the ICRT; if Nelson Gudín appears at the same time on the show in America Tevé before returning to Cuban Television; if Osdalgia closes, repeatedly, with her music on Alexis Valdés’ show, and Gente de Zona announces their concerts at The Place and in Las Vegas; if Alain Daniel — and this is the last straw! never before seen! — admits that this time he hasn’t come to offer any concerts, he is just going to spend a week in Miami recording and mastering his new CD; if such a notorious apologist for Fidel Castro as Cándido Fabré splutters with his phantasmagorical voice that he feels happy to be in this city; if all singers, humorists, painters or journalists who I saw in Cuba 7 months ago are the same people I see before the cameras of this country, it becomes difficult for me to situate myself in time and space.

But most of all, I find it hard to swallow that this reality is just and acceptable. I find it hard to applaud the dual speech of musicians such as La Charanga Habanera, when they sing inside of Cuba “You’re crying in Miami, and I’m partying in Havana”, and as soon as they step foot at Miami International Airport they despicably vary the chorus to please who will fill their pockets: “You party in Miami, and I party in Havana”. I find it hard to accept that those same salseros (salsa singers) and regueatoneros (reggeaton singers) who today do extremely well for themselves thanks to Miami and its audience, thanks to capitalism, to the market economy, to the country of bars and stars, are the ones who, when they return to the Island, sing at celebrations for the 26th of July and celebrate anniversaries of the same Revolution that denies the entry to so many residents of Miami. And let no one come to me with stories: my memory is only 27 years long, with 7 months of exile.

So then, what is the benefit to the exiled community from this euphemistic cultural exchange? None at all. How what does it benefit it economically? As little as possible. The beneficiaries, the only ones who profit out of the bridge that Manolín asked for in his song that in some ways now exist, are those same artists who play a dual role, an embarrassing role as cultural political supporters of the Cuban establishment, while they go to the abode of the enemy to fill their coffers.

It is not the same thing to have Frank Delgado in Miami, as Cándido Fabré. It is not the same to have Los Aldeanos, as Gente de Zona. It is not the same to have Pedro Luis Ferrer, as Pablo Milanés. The outcast among the unjust is not the same as the accomplice and the ones that were integrated into the unjust.

Morality must be very fucked up in a country that screams out slogans to the enemy, and later looks for, in silence, the enemy’s gold. My best wish for the great Pablito, the icon of the Nueva Trova, an illustrious Bayamés (someone born in Bayamo), is that he enjoy his stay in Miami, and hopefully the whispers of pain and nostalgia from the million and a half emigrants that wander about on this land, won’t overshadow his magnificent voice during his concert.

Translated by: Angelica Morales

August 1 2011

I Still Don’t Know If You Will Sing / Yoani Sánchez

Photo: www.elmundo.es

I greatly fear the response of “never”
Pablo Milanés

The last time I went to a Pablo Milanés concert I couldn’t hum a single one of his songs. In the middle of the anti-imperialist bandstand* several friends and I unfurled a cloth with the name Gorki on it, to demand the release from jail — in August of 2008 — of that punk rock musician charged with “pre-criminal dangerousness.” The painted sheet survived a few brief seconds in the air before a well-trained mob fell all over us. The next day my whole body ached and I felt a particular annoyance toward the author of Yolanda, imagining him as a passive witness to what had happened. I was wrong, however. Afterward, I learned that thanks to his mediation we hadn’t slept that night in a dungeon, and that he had also interceded to get Gorki returned to the streets.

This coming August 27, Pablo Milanés is scheduled to give a concert in Miami. An event that has sparked the irritation of those who consider him a “minstrel of the Castro regime.” But not even the most passionate critics should forget that his own life has been — like that of so many Cubans — a sequence of blows dealt by intolerance: his imprisonment in a UMAP forced labor camp, the misunderstandings in the early days of Nueva Trova, and the closing of the foundation that bears his name. They should also recognize that Pablo Milanés had the courage to refuse to sign that letter where innumerable intellectuals and artists supported the repressive measures taken by the government of the Island in 2003, among which was the execution of three young men who had hijacked a boat to emigrate.

Pablo, the chubby Pablo, who in the eighties was heard at every point on the dial when we tuned our radio, evolved as many of us did. He has made his differences heard for several years and his face is no longer present in those profoundly politicized acts with which the authorities try to demonstrate that “the artists are on the side of the Revolution.” I sense, also, that he would like to share a stage in Havana with those exiled voices who are still not allowed to appear in their own country. The troubadour who proposes to sing in Florida in a few days is a man who has grown and matured artistically and civically, conscious, as well, of the need for both shores of our nation to be reunited. Thus, to receive Pablo Milanés with shouts and insults could delay the necessary embrace between Cubans from here and from there… but it will not prevent it.

Translator’s note:
The “anti-imperialist bandstand,” also called the “Protestodrome,” is a stage and concert area built in front of the United States Interest Section in Havana, along the waterfront boulevard and seawall known as the Malecon.